'The last truly great book I read has to be Alejandro Zambra's Bonsai. A subtle, eerie, ultimately wrenching account of failed young love in Chile among the kind of smartypant set who pillow-talk about the importance of Proust.... A total knockout.'
- Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
'Every beat and pattern of being alive becomes revelatory and bright when narrated by Alejandro Zambra. He is a modern wonder.'
- Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch
'Rather than shrink in its conversion to bound covers, as most manuscripts do, Zambra's text has swelled-and its effect on the world of Chilean literature has been entirely disproportionate to its size.'
- Marcela Valdes, The Nation
'The most talked-about writer to come out of Chile since Bolano.'
- New York Times
'Strikingly original.'
- James Wood, New Yorker
'There's a dreamy associative quality of the novella that made it feel true and beautiful and moving. I left Bonsai feeling a little melancholic ache in my ribs, as though some crucial part of me had been taken away.'
- New York Times
'Bonsai fulfills one of the requirements of the short novel: the search for perfection [...] supremely, effectively ambiguous.'
- J.A. Masoliver Rodenas, La Vanguardia
'When I read Zambra I feel like someone's shooting fireworks inside my head.'
- Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive
'Not a single word is wasted in this powerful, elegantly told story, which traces through a few episodes in the lives of Julio and Emilia, two young people who fall for one another at university-bonding over their love of literature and discussion-then retreat from one another's lives.'
- Literary Hub
